SHEPARD SMITH (HOST): The United States made concessions in exchange for no hard promises, stopping joint military exercises with South Korea while North Korea makes a vague commitment to work together towards denuclearization. The agreement the leaders signed is very short on specifics.
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First from the Fox News deck this Tuesday afternoon, the talk happened, hands shaken, photos taken, and during a private meeting, promises were apparently made. But who wanted what? Well, America demanded complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization -- CVID, complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization. There is no guarantee of that, not even words to that effect, and we may not know for years whether we're actually now on that road, or left in the potholes of paths past.
But Kim Jong Un, he wanted the photos, the seat at the table. He wanted the legitimacy that came with the event, the handshake with America's president, and he wanted those military exercises with the Americans and the South Koreans that happen every year to stop. Kim Jong Un got it all for actually doing nothing. Plus, he got a promise, lacking specifics, granted, of security for the North Korean regime.
A regime that has an estimated 120,000 political prisoners across the nation. A regime that tortures and murders its own citizens, imprisons children for the actions of parents and grandparents, and a leader who has committed crimes against humanity.
President Trump insisted the people of the most entrenched land in all the world, North Korea, love their leader. President Trump says he trusts Chairman Kim and that he's ready to start a new chapter with North Korea. What will the president's special bond with Kim Jong Un mean for the U.S. and its allies? No specifics.
President Trump and Kim signed a joint statement after almost five hours of talks, and in the document, the North Korean leader, quote, “reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
No specifics of how to do it. No timeline on getting it done. No verification, no inspection. No, nothing else -- just generalities.
President Trump called the North Korean dictator very talented, and praised him. The United Nations has called him one of the most brutal and repressive regimes in modern history. The president also told Sean Hannity he thinks the dictator Kim Jong Un will start getting rid of his nukes right away.
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We cannot look at what he's done. He hasn't even copped to what capabilities he has, what weapons he possesses, much less allowed anyone to come take a gander.
As for the military exercises with South Korea -- a 300 or so thousand person-strong event that takes the whole year to plan and coordinate, with members of both nations' militaries operating in tandem with the goal of practicing defense against attack -- President Trump cancelled those without so much as a phone call or a text message to South Korean leaders. President Trump called Operation Key Resolve the “provocative war games,” and he nixed them.
